From Our Chairman
Hello Fellow Nelson Democrats,
While we have clearly stepped into the dog days of summer, our political scene is really heating up. Congratulations to Dr. Cameron Webb for his resounding victory in the primary, and our heartfelt appreciation to his very worthy opponents, Roger Dean Huffstetler, Claire Russo, and John Lesinski. I could not be more excited to have the opportunity to work on a campaign to elect Doctor Webb. With the Republicans in disarray after their disastrous version of a nominating convention, we have a great chance to finally flip the 5th. Let’s not miss this opportunity!
Many thanks for the incredibly generous outpouring of financial support to our sign campaign. We raised so much money (more than $4,000) that I was able to ask a few of you to redirect your money to our NCDC committee. So we are now in a great position to put our campaign strategy for 2020 in place. The highway signs should arrive at the end of July and we will start getting them up in early August. While on the subject of signs, I want to thank Victor and Toni Gonchoroff for the health care signs, and Marilyn Mars for the We Trust Joe signs.
Here is how we will be campaigning this year with COVID-19 forcing us to abandon door to door campaigning and large-scale gatherings. It will all be by direct mail and phone follow up. Our target number is 4000 votes. All our precinct captains will be given lists of potential voters gleaned from the Vote Builder (an online data base) and compiled by our campaign committee.,
Our plan is to print a basic letter to be sent to all 4,000 of these voters with as much information on voting either by mail or early voting in Lovingston (and possibly a satellite site in the north end of Nelson). Each letter will be personalized and we will include an application to vote by mail . While we have a good start in finding enough volunteers to send the letters, if you want to join in the fun, please let me or your precinct captain know. We hope to follow up all the letters with phone calls and offer any assistance we possibly can. Because of federal election laws, we cannot promote specific candidates in these letters, so the calls will be important.
Finally, let me just say how honored I am to be the chair at this critical juncture in our country’s history. When I tell my fellow chairs in the 5th that I sent out one email, and received the kind of support you gave me in our sign campaign, they are simply amazed. A majority in Nelson voted for 45 in 2016 because unfortunately a large number of voters did not vote that year. We cannot let that happen again. It’s up to us, and that cliché – this is the most important election in our lifetime, is true now. We need to put our hearts and wallets into action this year. Thanks.
Larry Stopper